HENIKER, N.H. (AP) — Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie delivered his opening arguments against Donald Trump on Thursday, sounding like the accuser might once again be the presidential candidate he wants to be.
“Tonight is the beginning of the case against Donald Trump,” Christie said in New Hampshire, where he devoted his entire opening remarks at a town hall meeting to attacking the former president he once supported.
“You’re not going to beat someone by closing your eyes, clicking your ankles together three times and saying, ‘There’s no place like home.’ It won’t work,” he said. “Who in American politics do you want to defeat? You have to go get them.
Christie called out several Republican candidates and potential candidates – including former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – for barely uttering Trump’s name and argued that Trump’s policy and character failures would only increase if he Will return to office.
“Donald Trump is a TV star, nothing more, nothing less,” he said. “I suggest to you that in bringing her back to the White House, the reruns will be worse than the original show.”
As he gets closer to deciding on his own campaign, Christie is spending two days in the state where he finished a disappointing sixth in the 2016 GOP primary. He supported Trump shortly after he dropped out of that year’s race and later served on his presidential transition team. In 2020, he worked with Trump on preparing for his debate against Joe Biden, but broke with Trump when he refused to accept his defeat in the election and inspired the January 6 Uprising at the US Capitol.
Since then, Christie has emerged as one of the GOP’s few prominent critics of Trump, largely through her position as an ABC political analyst.
He said on Thursday he would not stand by and let Trump win.
“If I decide to run, I might try to do something directly about it. And if I don’t, I’ll be on ABC-TV every Sunday,” he said.
